Although nothing official has been announced, speculation is periodically flying about of a Spider-Woman movie, with several actors including the likes of Emma Roberts, Shailene Woodley and Alicia Vikander put forward for the role in various rumored castings. The latest, coming with its own piece of fan art, imagines Star Wars‘ Daisy Ridley donning Jessica Drew’s red and yellow spandex.
Originating in 1977 as a distaff counterpart to Spider-Man, Spider-Woman’s initial creation was to circumvent potential copyright issues, similar to what led to the creation of She-Hulk and the death of Captain America. Although her appearance was only intended to establish the character within Marvel’s remit to prevent anyone else from using the name, her unexpected popularity led to her receiving her own ongoing title that included occult magic and Arthurian legend, drafting in the magic-wielding immortal Morgan le Fay as an enemy.
Ridley’s star-making turn in Star Wars demonstrated her ability to convincingly act both physically capable and emotionally vulnerable, both of which would be necessary in portraying Jessica, with her loneliness, social awkwardness and feelings of isolation having a great deal of potential from which to craft a compelling screen presence. Additionally, with the character’s comic origin seeing her grow up in England, Ridley could continue using her natural accent and not have indignant misogynists feel compelled to dissect her attempt at an American one in apoplectic rage at her audacity to continue appearing in major films.
While it’s not official one way or the other whether we’ll be getting any kind of Spider-Woman movie (and with the uncertainly over the timescale of the MCU’s future development, it’ll be a long wait even if we do), we can continue to imagine who we would like in the role, and you could certainly do a lot worse than Ridley.